“I'm not a female developer, I'm a developer at UC” — Women in IT

Women's Day 2021 is different in several ways than all previous ones.

Due to the pandemic, personal relationships have been transformed, greetings and forms of greetings have become more restrained, and colleagues, acquaintances, distant friends have moved away from each other in a physical and perhaps even emotional sense. However, what can be written in favor of the pandemic: almost from one week to the next, the importance of the IT sector in our daily lives has appreciated in an amazing way, be it private life, the public sector or even the business world, and in the latter our company, United Consult (UC) in Budapest, also plays a serious role in Hungary. On the occasion of Women's Day, we wanted to know how one of our colleagues working as a CRM developer, data scientist, scrum master, test team leader and IT sales person feels in the constantly evolving, increasingly open, but still highly masculine world of IT.

Dora Schuszter He has been working at UC for two years as a Salesforce developer, his first job.

He works on projects of one of the well-known telecommunications companies and, as he said, he finds positive experiences in all of them, in each case there is something new that enriches him with interesting and important professional experience.

“When I got into work, Salesforce was a completely unfamiliar area for me. We are talking about the world's leading industry CRM system, and getting to know and learning about it has already been a huge opportunity for individual development. I think that a lot is taught at university, but in practice, in the industry, I was able to acquire the knowledge needed in practice, in the industry, in the course of my work,” says Dóra Schuszter, who believes that in the case of United Consult it is a completely youthful corporate culture, where she feels very comfortable.

- It is also very important for the company that we, employees, feel good, this is true for both women and men. They treat us uniformly, they value us uniformly. I'm not a female developer, I'm a developer at UC, and I think that's very good,” the young Salesforce developer emphasized. He added that when he went to university, he was aware of how masculine he had chosen a profession: a few years ago, there had been a girl in the major.

— Big changes are currently taking place in the field: more and more women are starting to work in the IT sector, for example, in my master's degree there are already almost half to half the proportion of girls and boys. I believe that a woman can do well in this profession, but it is absolutely necessary to have a real attitude, logical thinking. I have never had a disadvantage for working as a woman in the IT industry. On the other hand, I find it positive that many times even today they are surprised and look at me with appreciation, for which I can stand a place in this profession - believes Dóra. According to him, this area represents a secure future for both women and men, as there is a constant shortage of workers in the IT professions, and this is likely to remain so in view of the development.

Szilvia Mitterer one of the owners of the company. He has been working for UC since the beginning, working with most of the owners long before the company was founded in the mid-'90s.

“Since I am not specifically an IT specialist, in the field of IT I mainly take part in the tasks of organization and communication, project management and sales,” said Szilvia, who originally graduated as an economic engineer, has a degree in finance and a foreign trade degree, but has been a pillar member of one of the leading IT companies in Hungary for twenty years.

“Even if they know about you in this masculine world that you are not an IT specialist, but as a woman you show an interest in the field and take the trouble to understand the systems, then you can move forward like a knife in butter. Of course, I have a kind of technical openness, maybe that's why I move quite well in the IT world.

Both as a worker and as a woman, you feel that UC is not just a workplace, but a very inclusive community as well. He stressed that over the past twenty years he has received the maximum support he needed from the company, both humanly and professionally, and he is very proud of his male colleagues because they are socially sensitive and, if necessary, always help colleagues at UC.

— In the twenty years since its foundation, the company has undergone a lot of changes. The aim of the circle of owners and the first 60-70 people joining the team was to preserve a kind of family value and atmosphere, as we used to say, beyond professional professionalism. We want to maintain and pass it on today, but we see that it is becoming increasingly difficult for a company of this size and number of employees. Despite all this, even today within the organization there is a special invisible respect, understanding and acceptance for each other. Those who want to prove themselves, who are hungry for success, and who put themselves there, everything will surely achieve what they want with us and can expect to be appreciated, regardless of whether you are a woman or a man - he emphasized.

IT is still a very masculine profession, but in recent years, according to her, serious changes have begun: already at the managerial level, there are more and more women in the sphere, their acceptance is increasing, and this, according to Szilvia, is a very good thing.

As he said about his own work, as a salesperson, it feels great to represent something that has as big a name in the world as Salesforce, and UC has the opportunity to do that. As a gold-grade partner of the American company, wherever you go, you can speak with great pride about the solution it represents.

“It is a pleasure to see that interested people listen to our results with sparkling eyes, and questions just come and go. Of course, Salesforce is a premium business system, so although the range of interested parties is getting wider every year, the customer base is also evolving accordingly. The pandemic has appreciated such systems and confirmed us in how much value we can provide to our customers, added Szilvia.

Renata Vészi He worked for United Consult for sixteen years and joined the team in 2005.

— I started working in the outdoor team building business as a training organizer, as a trainer assistant, then in 2011 I got a new opportunity within the company and transferred to the telecommunications business, I have been working in the testing area for essentially ten years, currently at the Hungarian subsidiary of one of the leading international telecommunications companies as a team lead of the UC test team — price says the Rena. He added: - My past as an organization developer also accompanies me during my testing career, with my current project team I feel that we have reached a very mature level of team development, where we can also say from a professional point of view that the fruits of our work have ripened. Before, I never thought that I would ever have to tinker with automated testing, for example, to develop test strategies, but opportunities and challenges came up, and I tried to cope with them.

Rena also shared that over the years she has received a lot of help and support for professional development from her colleagues, and now she feels that she can really work on projects, tasks and positions in which she can be fulfilled both on the human and professional side.

When I look back on the past few years, I feel like I'm in my place. My work is both human-centered and IT-centric, for me it is important that both be present and I get that at UC,” he said. “I have been part of UC for sixteen years, and I have been part of UC. Most of my friends, in fact, in a sense my family members are all UCs. I don't even look at the company as a workplace, but as a community, which I really love. It is not a formalized company, the organization is relatively flat, it is not overstructured, I like that it is informal, yet it works properly.

According to Rena, at UC it has never been authoritative whether the employee is a woman or a man, only human attitude and professional competencies matter, and she sees this as a value. The issue of gender is mainly reflected in the fact that, as United Consult is not “just” a company, but a real community, there have been many relationships, marriages and many UC babies have already been born to form the foundation of the new IT generation.

— My male colleagues have always looked at me as an equal partner, I have not had any professional advantages or disadvantages from being a woman, I especially like working with men because of their rational way of thinking. Of course, it's hard work in such a masculine IT society to get to the point of being looked at not just as a woman, but as a professional. What helps a lot in this process is - in addition to professionalism - humor - he reported on his experience.

Regarding her own projects, Rena highlighted that they have recently reached an important milestone: at one of the telecommunications companies they are developing a product that is used by hundreds of thousands of their customers.

— With this mobile application, a system representing almost the entire spectrum of service providers of the company is directly in the hands of the user. In less than 2 years, we did not “just” develop a new product, but we developed a new mobile app according to internationally defined criteria, according to new operating methodologies, new expertise, using new technologies, while also building an extremely well-functioning team. By the way, female developers also participated in the project, said Rena, who as one of the team leaders working on the project feels that there is no discrimination between women and men within the team, and the gender ratio brings the average characteristic of the IT sector.

“I've never had any problems with being a woman in a team that's mostly men. Of course, you have to learn to deal with the situation, but the main thing is to look at the other person as a person.

Palotay Réka he joined the United Consult team a little over four years ago as a university intern. He started in the big data field and has been working for the company as a data scientist ever since.

— Because we work on a project basis, sometimes outsourced to clients and sometimes internal projects, this variety is what I like most about my work. Working with different companies and people is a huge challenge and experience. It is also an interesting and important experience that sometimes you have to solve tasks alone and sometimes as part of a team. It also makes the work varied by the fact that everything happens from simple tasks to complex processes, said Réka. He also added that he feels comfortable with the company not only because of the professionalism, but also because of the family atmosphere and good community. Our big data business has just experienced the biggest growth in the past year, during the COVID situation. This somewhat reshaped the company and the atmosphere.

“It is basically a boys' profession, but more and more often girls are also choosing it.

According to Réka, boys think that in essence they only benefit from working as a woman in this profession. The reality, on the other hand, is that in many situations you have to fight more and harder to be taken professionally seriously.

— I recommend that girls who are about to choose or change careers should also consider IT professions, as there are many different areas of this world today. Surely many people will find specialties that fit well with their personal qualities and interests. In the IT world today, there is also a perspective for women, said the data scientist.

Gaal-Farkas Melinda In 2001, he joined the company's predecessor as an assistant, and took a job here in addition to obtaining his second degree.

Over the past 20 years, he has participated in many interesting projects, worked on various projects of two large telco companies as a billing system expert and business analyst, but also gained experience in the field of public administration through the quality improvement program of educational institutions as a coordinator and as an auditor. He is now working as a scrum master and tester for one of the leading UC partners, one of the largest international health IT innovators, developing software for tools that can deliver breakthrough results in the early diagnosis of many diseases, such as cancer, stroke or even Alzheimer's disease, even in the near future.

- We have not only professional but also friendly relations between our employees. The organizational hierarchy is not as tight and the organizational culture is not as rigid as perhaps in many other companies of this size on the market, Melinda said. He said that he had only positive experiences with the company. He received a lot of professional help, he was able to attend trainings, and the mentoring system was practically self-developed within the organization.

“The great advantage of UC, and no training can provide this, is that the employees are a real lifeline to each other in any situation. This is a very important safety net in everyday life - said the scrum master. - Since many of us work at parterhouses and sites, we often do not meet a colleague for weeks or months. When we meet at a team-building training or any program, it feels a bit like when a lagzin finally meets relatives he hasn't seen for a long time.

Melinda also said she never felt negatively discriminated against for working as a woman in this profession. According to him, equality works perfectly both within the company and on the sites. She added that as a mother, the situation is a little more difficult, it is really a challenge to coordinate with work.

— IT is not a subjective area, even if the solution options can be multiple. This is a clear, objective genre: one, zero, black, white, yes, no. It is not necessary to think in nuances, but only in exact solutions, Melinda said of her personal affection for IT. “There are women among my colleagues, my boss is also a woman; I think that this is no longer relevant in this profession. Women in IT are characterized by rational thinking, they do not like to overcomplicate things. Of course, there are obviously more men in this profession, but basically there is no importance to gender.

Melinda believes that IT offers just as many exciting opportunities for women as it does for men, adding that she also warmly recommends UC because of the diverse work and supportive community. As he said, he himself is a good example of the fact that it is possible to switch flexibly even within a company, it is possible to try several specialties. In addition, the work has serious business and social impacts, so he feels that he can make the world a better place with his IT tools.

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